First informal meeting within the Eastern Partnership panel on research and innovation

The first informal working group under R&I Panel with the EaP took place on 22 April 2021

60+ participants joined the meeting: from the six EaP countries (32 representatives of 6 EaP Partner countries), representatives of 4 EU Member States (Croatia, Latvia, Poland and Romania), 4 Civil Society Forum representatives, and European Commission and EEAS colleagues.

The meeting took stock of the achievements of the EaP Partner Countries regarding their participation in Horizon 2020, but also set forward directions for cooperation in R&I most notably emphasizing the need for cooperation in technology transfer and smart specialization. Moreover, EEAS and NEAR colleagues kindly framed the work forward in the new difficult political and policy climate as well as the time of transition towards the post-2020 EaP agenda and between the two R&I FPs. They also gave preliminary remarks with regard to the upcoming EaP Summit and accompanying documents.

Participants emphasised the importance of the R&I component of the EaP work in the overall development of the countries, especially in the period of recovery and asked for EU’s support both in developing the adequate R&I ecosystems/infrastructure, capacity building but also to compensate the HE participation costs. They again underlined the importance of NCP network, their training but also broader information campaign vis-à-vis EaP stakeholders and authorities on this work, asking the political platform of EaP to pass strong messages on R&I importance. Furthermore, some of the EaPs noted the need to boost cooperation between the economic sector and universities or research centers, and to focus on innovation pillar in their domestic policies. Civil society representatives supported some of these messages and reminded the goal to increase domestic funding to R&I.

More information

International cooperation with the Eastern Partnership